June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. asked a Dusseldorf appeals
court to ban sales of Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy 10.1N
tablet computer, a modified version of the device introduced
after the original tablet was blocked in Germany.

Samsung didn’t sufficiently change the device and is still
trying to exploit the iPad’s reputation, said Matthias Koch, an
Apple lawyer, at a hearing today on Apple’s bid to overturn a
lower court decision in February denying the request.

“Samsung added some loudspeakers and made the sides a bit
thicker, but that can’t be it,” Koch said before the Dusseldorf
Higher Regional Court. “It’s the typical tactic of
multinational companies which change just a bit and see how far
they can get with that.”

Apple has been fighting tablet competitors in courts across
the globe for about a year. While the iPad maker scored a
victory in January when a ban on sales of the earlier Galaxy
10.1 model was upheld by the Dusseldorf appeals judges, a U.S.
federal appeals court yesterday denied the same request in
California. The lower Dusseldorf court refused to ban Samsung’s
Galaxy 10.1N, introduced to get around the ban deeming the
earlier model too similar to the iPad.

Samsung presented a poll it commissioned finding German
consumers don’t buy the Galaxy 10.1N to make others believe they
own an iPad. The results counter Apple’s claim the tablet
profits off the iPad’s reputation, argued Marcus Grosch, a
lawyer for the Suwon, South Korea-based company.

‘Complicated Cases’

The survey may be of limited value as people hardly admit
they buy a cheaper product to make others believe they own a
more expansive one, Presiding Judge Wilhelm Berneke said. The
court will have to make up its own opinion, he added.

“We will have to balance a lot of aspects, but that’s our
job in complicated cases,” said Berneke, noting that the
Samsung name is also more prominently displayed on the new
model. “We will use plausibility arguments which may sometimes
trump empirical arguments.”

At a hearing earlier today Apple asked the same court to
extend a sales ban it won against Samsung’s Galaxy 7.7 tablet
computer in Germany to other European Union member countries.

Judge Berneke said the Galaxy 7.7 tablet is much closer
than the original 10.1 to a European Union design Apple had
registered. The court can only grant an EU-wide ban if it finds
a violation of the EU design rights and that a Samsung entity in
Germany is legally a subsidiary of the Korean company, as
defined under EU rules, he said.

In its ruling upholding the original Galaxy 10.1 ban, the
court found the Samsung entity is such a subsidiary. The judges
are unlikely to ask the European Court of Justice to rule on the
issue because Apple filed the bid under emergency procedures
requiring swift decisions, he said. If the parties want
clearance from the EU’s top court, they can still ask to open
regular proceedings in the case, said Berneke.